Fickle Father Feelings
by wonky
Summary: Father's Day isn't any fun if you haven't got a father. Harry knows all about not having fun. AU oneshot. Preslash HPDM.


**Summary**: Father's Day isn't fun if you don't have a father. Harry knows all about not having fun.  
**Warnings**: AU. Pre-slash.  
**Rating**: PG

**A/N**: This was supposed to be a small drabble for the HD100 community on LJ based on the word _father_… and then my fingers were possessed by the typing demon, so that didn't work out too well. In the meantime, er, happy belated Father's Day. :D

* * *

Harry remembered once during his first year of primary school and a year after The Accident when his teacher had let them make Father's Day cards. Harry had spent hours; coloring and gluing and pasting --

Harry remembered Uncle Vernon's fist cuffing the side of his jaw and not being able to see because it hurt so much.

Harry remembered ripping the card into tiny little shreds and stuffing it in the dinner he had helped make that night.

"I'm not doing it," Harry declared, flushing furiously.

His professor, whom Harry only called McGonagall because her first name was weird, looked mildly irritated. "Not doing what, Potter?"

Harry gave her his fiercest glare. "Not making some stupid Father's Day card!"

"He only doesn't want to because he hasn't got a real father," someone whispered knowledgeably from behind him. It sounded like Hermione Granger, the smartest girl in class who liked to make everybody else - or maybe it was just Harry - look dumb. Harry whirled around in his seat.

"Shut up! Don't pretend like you know everything!"

"You shut up!" Ron Weasley retorted. "Just 'cause you're an orphan doesn't mean the rest of us don't want to make cards!" He looked victorious and smug - Ron had hated Harry ever since Dudley had teased his sister, and that had been before Harry even lived with the Dursleys. Something tightened in Harry's throat as he remembered that not only did Ron have a father, but a large, protective _family _--

Harry turned back around sharply, because Uncle Vernon had told him that he wasn't to get in any more fights, _or else_. Harry didn't exactly know what _or else_ meant, but he reckoned the look on Uncle Vernon's face when he said it was telling enough.

McGonagall rubbed the bridge between her forehead and her nose. "I'm sure your uncle - "

"_No_," Harry said loudly. He wouldn't make another card for Uncle Vernon ever again, not even if he was _dying_.

"Oh, very well, Potter," McGonagall snapped. Harry was the only one she ever called by last name, and sometimes Harry thought she truly hated him. He mostly blamed it on Dudley acting like a demon terror. "Go sit back in the corner and work on some homework."

The class giggled. "_Ooh_," sing-songed Pansy Parkinson, "Harry's in _trou-ble_!" The corner table was reserved for the Bad Kids, like Gregory Goyle and Vincent Crabbe, who never did their classwork and beat up smaller kids during recess.

"Quiet, Pansy," McGonagall shushed her as Harry made his way to the table. It looked like it had been a tiger's chew toy. "Does everyone have construction paper?"

There was a chorus of _Yes'm_s and the sound of scissors cutting out hearts and flowers and smiley faces. Dean, the resident artist, was painstakingly drawing a _Happy Father's Day _composed entirely of little stick figures holding hands.

Harry scowled at the floor.

Cards were stupid. _Father's Day_ was stupid. What was the use of celebrating it if you didn't -- if you didn't even _have_ a father? It wasn't Harry's fault he didn't have a father, or a mother, or friends, it was - it - it was all his _father's _fault, for dying and being stupid and causing The Accident and leaving Harry alone. Harry's eyes burned in humiliation and anger.

The last time he had cried, Dudley had split his lip and told Harry to shut up or Dudley would really give him something to cry about. Harry believed him.

He bit his lip hard and eyed Ron and Hermione. It was his father's fault he didn't have any friends. Hermione was best friends with Parvati - Harry knew because they wore matching bracelets - and Parvati was friends with Lavender who was friends with Hannah who was friends with Seamus, and --

And they were all friends with Ron, who hated Harry, and no one really wanted to be friends with an orphan anyway, because it would be awkward and uncomfortable.

Harry slumped against the table on his elbows and eyed the clock above the door. There were only forty-two minutes - they had learned time a while back - until lunch time, and then Harry could leave and sit by himself at one of the lunch tables and pretend he was somewhere else. Someone else.

The door slammed open and Harry very nearly jumped. Madam Hooch (Harry wasn't quite sure why they called her Madam, but he had heard Hermione say once that she was French), the secretary, stuck her head in the classroom with a frown. She always looked ready to yell, and Harry wasn't surprised when the small boy she dragged into the room behind her - smaller than Harry, even - batted her hands off him immediately with an offended look and took two steps away from her.

"New student!" She barked, and the entire classroom shifted their attention to the boy. He had his arms crossed sulkily, as if he would rather be killing his own dog than be in school. Harry felt an instant kindred spirit.

"This is Draco Malfoy. He's just moved here from the city."

He rather looked like he was from the city, Harry decided, and suddenly wished he wasn't wearing Dudley's old cast-offs. A very rich city, maybe. He pulled his hair over the scar on his forehead in nervous habit as McGonagall and Madam talked in hushed tones for a moment, leaving the new student standing in the front of the room. Harry saw him surveying the classroom with a look of faint curiosity. After what seemed like a long time, McGonagall turned back around.

"Welcome," she said, with a half sort of smile that made her face even more pinched than it was usually. "We're making Father's Day cards today."

"Making cards is for _babies_," the boy snorted. The rest of the students, who had just broken into excited whispers (and giggles from some of the girls, Harry noted crossly), fell into astonished silence.

"I knew I'd hate it here," he added, scowling.

"Ah," sighed McGonagall, which, her tone seemed to indicate, meant _Not another one_. She and Madam, who was still hovering by the door, shared a look.

"Why don't you go sit in the back there, with Potter. There are some books on the shelves you can look through. Potter, raise your hand."

Someone snickered as Harry raised his hand, but Harry couldn't tell if it was directed at him or because the new kid had to sit at the Bad Table. McGonagall looked at him, and her eyes said: _Be nice, or else_. Harry shivered, then watched from under his bangs as Draco (rather strange name, Harry thought) walked over. Harry felt tongue-tied as he sat down.

"I'm Draco Malfoy," he announced, and stuck his hand out straight in front of Harry's face. Harry had no idea what to do: High five? Pinky promise? Kiss on the knuckles, like in all those old movies? Harry hoped not, that was rather embarrassing -

"Oh, honestly," Draco huffed, and reached out to shake Harry's hand. "Don't they teach you strange country folk any manners?"

He said _country folk_ in a tone that reminded Harry of Dudley squashing a bug underneath his trainers. He snatched his hand back.

"_You're _the strange one," Harry retorted. "Your hair looks awfully funny slicked back like that, didja know?"

"It does not!" gasped Draco indignantly. He put a hand up to touch his hair defensively and stuck his lower lip out. "_Didja_ is not a word." he added, with a sniff. "You're supposed to say _did you_."

There was another snicker. Harry's ears burned.

"Whatever," Harry grumbled, and took out his homework. He saw Draco eyeing him before turning to the bookshelves.

"What are you working on?" Draco asked, after a few minutes of watching Harry struggle out of the corner of his eye. He had apparently not realized his change from Kindred Spirit to Pointy-Faced-Git. Harry glared at him.

"You don't have any good books," he added, a bit defensively. "Shouldn't have expected any, from such a small school."

Harry scowled. "Maths," he said grudgingly, but only because he didn't really like the school either.

"Oh!" Draco squeaked. He looked rather like a mouse, Harry thought, or a rat. His nose was kind of pointy. "I'm brilliant at maths!"

Figures, Harry thought, and said "division" in answer to the next question.

Draco gave him an eager, proud look. "I love division," He confided in a whisper, as if it were a secret, and glanced down a Harry's paper. Harry frowned and covered it with his hands, but it was too late.

"You're doing it wrong," Draco said, and there were more sniggers. Harry's face flamed, but Draco didn't seem to notice. "Do you want me to show you how to do them?"

"_No_," Harry hissed, and slammed his book closed. Draco stared at him.

"There's no need to throw a tantrum," he muttered, and turned back to the bookshelves with his arms crossed.

Harry felt a bit guilty.

"I hate maths," he said abruptly, after a moment. "History is my favorite." He saw Draco peek out of the corner of his eye at Harry. He opened his mouth, then shut it.

Well, Harry thought crossly, he wasn't going to _force _the new kid to talk to him. If Draco wanted to be friendly (and Harry was kind of hoping he would), then he could bloody well start the next conversation.

At 11:47 - Harry had been watching the seconds tick by - Draco said: "_I_ already got my father a gift."

"That's... nice," said Harry, cautiously, but it was apparently the only encouragement that Draco needed. He turned back around and smiled smugly.

"It's a little dragon so he can take it to his work and always remember me because Draco means dragon."

He seemed pleased. Harry supposed he would have been, too, if he had a father to give things to and had a name that meant dragon. Harry didn't know what his own name meant, but he figured it wasn't very hard to guess. He touched his hair with a scowl.

"What did you get your father?" asked Draco.

Harry bristled. "My father never did anything for me," he snapped. "I don't see why I should do something for him."

Draco blinked. "But - you're _supposed _to," he hedged. "It's _Father's Day_."

"Harry doesn't have a dad," Ron whispered loudly. He had turned in his seat to give Harry a malicious smile. "_That's_ why he doesn't want to make a card."

Harry felt angry heat rising to his face. "Shut _up_, Weasley!"

Ron sniggered unpleasantly and turned back around, but Harry knew the damage had already been done. Draco gaped at him, then shut his mouth and blushed.

Another maybe-friend down the drain because of Harry's stupid, _dead_ father.

"Never mind," Harry muttered into the uncomfortable silence, but his heart still sank when Draco turned away from him.

Seven minutes until lunch.

Six minutes until lunch.

Five minutes until lunch.

"I'm making a poem for my Dad," Harry heard Ron whisper proudly to Seamus. "It goes, _Hey, Dad, you're so cool. Hey, Dad, you_-" He paused sheepishly. "I still need an ending."

"Like the pool?" Seamus suggested.

"Are good with tools?" asked Parvati.

"No, no," Ron scowled. "It has to be _good_. I don't want to be like the _orphan_ over there - I heard his cousin saying his parents killed themselves because they hated him so much -"

"Ron!" Hermione gasped, sounding scandalized and a bit gleeful at the same time. Harry felt his vision blurring._ No fighting, or else. Or else_, _or else_ -

"I have something," said Draco.

Three minutes, thought Harry, but felt like someone had punched him.

"What?" asked Ron. He was smirking at Harry.

"How about," Draco drawled, and the room was quiet enough so that his voice carried across it, "Father, you're a_ fool_?"

Ron dropped his marker. Hermione gasped.

Harry's head snapped up in disbelief.

"Mr. Malfoy!" McGonagall shrieked. "Apologize at once!"

Harry's heart thumped wildly. Draco's eyes flickered to Harry's for the briefest of moments, and then he stuck his pointy little nose in the air.

"No."

"You take that back!" Ron hollered, jumping op from his seat. His ears were burning pink. "Take it _back_!"

"Malfoy's never apologize," Draco sniffed. "My father said so."

Ron started to turn purple. "My father --"

"Will be hearing about this if you do not sit down, Mr. Weasley!" McGonagall barked. "Mr. Malfoy! We do not antagonize other students in this classroom! Kindly sit yourself back down next to Mr. Potter!"

The room was immediately filled with loud, harsh whispers, and looks shot between Ron and Draco and Draco and Harry.

Harry wasn't sure what to say. Draco blinked at him for long moments, and the bell rang. Draco lingered and left before Harry's mind was even knew what it was doing.

"I - Wait!" Harry yelped, and scrambled after him out the door. "Do - Do you want to, um, sit with me? At lunch?"

Draco didn't answer him for what seemed like a long time, and Harry's palms began to get clammy, but then Draco beamed and gave him a shy sort of smile.

"Alright."

"Oh," muttered Harry, flushing. "I mean - um, that's good. The cafeteria's down here..."

He dropped Draco's wrist, which he hadn't even realized he had grasped, but Draco still followed him, like a faithful puppy, or --

A first friend.

Harry thought that this was probably the only time his father had ever caused anything good in his life.

It was too bad he wasn't around to see it.

* * *

The End

Everyone go hug their Daddys. :D


End file.
